Across the first 11 months of 2024, 80 criminal trials were held in Washoe County.

Clark County’s population is nearly five times larger — but over the same period, it saw nine fewer criminal trials.

“That’s insane,” Orrin Johnson, a Northern Nevada defense attorney said of the comparison to Clark County.

Nearly all criminal cases are resolved not through a trial but through a plea bargain — in which defendants often plead guilty to a lesser charge than they originally faced as a way to save time and money. But defense attorneys in Washoe County have continually sounded the alarm about a sharp growth in the number of trials ever since the county’s top prosecutor released new plea bargaining and charging standards two years ago, and they say the trend is unsustainable. 

“As a guy who lives here and wants to live in a safe community, I am very, very concerned that the amount of resources being driven into taking cases that shouldn't go to trial — or don't need to go to trial — in order to get justice, winds up taking away resources from successful prosecution of other cases,” Johnson said.

Chris Hicks, the county’s district attorney who led the creation of the standards in late 2022 has remained steadfast in his defense of the policy — which expects defendants offered plea deals to plead guilty to the most serious charge they are facing, and requires that the office only charge people who can be proven to have committed crimes “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Hicks noted similar, quasi-binding written standards are in place in some other local jurisdictions and the federal level and said that the changes hold criminals accountable, while also striking the difficult balance of protecting victims and ensuring that people are not wrongfully prosecuted.

“​​The guiding light of the DA's office is public safety and at the end of the day, seeking justice, doing what's right,” Hicks said. “And of course, the million dollar question is, ‘What is the right decision?’ That depends on a case-by-case basis.”

Clark County, by contrast, doesn't have a public policy on plea bargaining.

Local defense attorneys say the standards are responsible for Washoe County’s trial increase — and the accompanying changes to some court procedures and backlog issues — and have effectively dismantled the plea bargaining process. Additionally, the policy’s changes to how cases are charged has drawn frustration from some police officers, who cited an increase in decisions from the district attorney’s office to not pursue criminal charges.

The Nevada Independent first reported on the backlash to the policy at the end of 2023, the year with the most criminal trials in Washoe County’s history, and tensions have continued since then.

The ongoing dispute has raised questions surrounding what is sound prosecution policy in a growing region — a difficult balance to strike given the desire to protect community members, while also ensuring that charges filed will result in conviction.

Absent a policy change, the discord is likely to spill into next year, when Hicks is up for re-election to the position. He has never faced a challenger since entering the office in 2014, but multiple defense lawyers told The Indy they expect that to change next year because of outrage over the policy.

Hicks said in a statement that he is “absolutely” running for re-election to hold criminals accountable while ensuring fairness in the criminal justice system.

“These principles are firmly rooted in the practices of my office and its Charging and Plea-Bargaining Standards,” the statement said.

Trial surge

In 2024, the Washoe County District Court held 86 criminal trials — slightly fewer than the record-setting total in 2023, but nearly double any other single year since at least 2018, according to court data.

Five Washoe County defense attorneys told The Indy that they believe the surge stems entirely from the Hicks policy that prohibits prosecutors from offering a plea bargain that does not reflect the most serious charge, absent approval from a supervisor.

This, they said, has resulted in a significant decrease in plea bargaining negotiations — a practice that usually involves some kind of back-and-forth and compromise between both parties to avoid going to trial.

“I think the general culture of the DA’s office is incredibly tribal, and they try to ostracize the defense attorneys from their responsible roles in procuring due process for the accused,” said Ken Stover, a longtime Washoe County defense attorney.

Rich Molezzo, another longtime defense attorney, said this dynamic “degrades democracy.”

“People talking, people debating — that's an integral part of democracy,” Molezzo said.

The increase in trials has affected operations of the district court, which has had to stagger the start of certain jury trials because of a nearly twofold increase in jurors from 2022 to 2024, Judge Kathleen Drakulich told state legislators last month at a hearing for a bill that would increase the number of district court judges in Washoe County and other Nevada jurisdictions.

Drakulich added that the charging policy “probably has contributed” to the increase in trials, which she said she could not characterize “as a good or bad thing.”

Hicks in an interview acknowledged that the new standards might have played a role in the increase in trials, but that he took offense to the notion that they are solely responsible for the surge. 

Instead, he said the growth in trials was driven by other factors, such as the county’s rapid growth and the lingering effects of the pandemic, which considerably slowed down the judicial process and resulted in a one-year period with only three criminal trials occurring in Washoe County.

Thirty-five percent of the trials held in 2024 stemmed from charges filed before the policy went into effect at the end of 2022, according to the district attorney’s office. In 2023 — the record-setting year — 79 percent of trials held originated from charges filed pre-policy.

“To lay all that at the feet of the charging and plea bargaining standards is very disingenuous,” Hicks said.

Because of the fluid nature of plea negotiating, defense attorneys have argued that all ongoing cases are affected by the policy, no matter when they originated.

Plea bargaining is still happening in the county. In 2024, the number of criminal trials made up less than 1 percent of criminal cases pursued by the district attorney’s office — meaning the rest of the cases were either dismissed or pleaded out.

Plea offers were made, but rejected, in 78 of the 86 criminal cases that went to trial in 2024, according to data from the district attorney’s office. Offers were not made in the remaining eight cases, a slight decrease from the year before.

Federal prosecution guidelines for decades have largely aligned with what Hicks has in place. The Department of Justice has said that the defendant should be required to plead guilty to charges that “ordinarily include the most serious readily provable offense.” The federal justice system has drawn condemnation for overly harsh policies, such as mandatory minimum sentences.

Clark County, meanwhile, does not have a public plea bargaining policy, but officials there said it usually involves significant back-and-forth between the defense and prosecution.  

“The fundamental goal of the charging and plea bargaining standards is accountability, because that is the fundamental goal of our criminal justice system,” Hicks said in an interview. 

In a statement, Washoe County Public Defender Evelyn Grosenick said “going to trial is an essential aspect of our role as defense attorneys,” but doing so requires considerable resources.

“We need to have sufficient resources to handle the additional time it takes to prepare for and move forward with trials,” the statement said. “The DA’s plea policy operates essentially as an unfunded mandate on the rest of the criminal legal system, which will require additional resources and staff.”

More people not charged

The district attorney’s office has the authority to give out “no issue” memos — notices that the office would not file charges in a case brought by law enforcement unless more conclusive evidence is provided. It’s exercising that authority at higher rates than ever.

In the four years before the policy went into effect, the district attorney’s office issued these memos in about 3.4 percent of all cases received. Since then, it has nearly tripled to more than 9 percent.

Hicks acknowledged this change is attributable to the office’s decision to pursue charges only if there is evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the prosecution can secure a conviction — a higher standard than in the past.

“​​I believe most of our citizens would be very concerned if there was a prosecutor willing to charge people with a crime when there may … be insufficient evidence to prove it,” Hicks said. “Does that result sometimes in an individual being released on the initial charges they were arrested for? It does. It comes with that responsibility, but that in fact is the very balance that we have to strike every day.”

In the past, the office often used the “probable cause” threshold as the basis for filing charges, but Hicks said it resulted in charges being dismissed because of lacking evidence.

“If we charge a case based on probable cause, and it turns out … we cannot prove this case,” … it doesn't further advance accountability for offenders who did victimize another person,” Hicks said.

Standards from the National District Attorneys Association indicate that prosecutors should seek charges when there is a reasonable belief that the evidence can back up the charges during a trial, a threshold that aligns with the Washoe County policy.

The Department of Justice’s website has for decades had a similar policy that called for charges in cases with evidence that “will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.” However, last month the department introduced lower charging standards that say prosecutors should assess if there is probable cause when determining whether to pursue charges.

The Clark County District Attorney’s Office also uses the beyond a reasonable doubt threshold when determining whether to pursue charges, Chief Deputy District Attorney John Jones said at a legislative hearing last month. 

However, some law enforcement officials believe the charging policy is resulting in more cases brought by officers going nowhere.

Nick Slider, the president of the Sparks Police Protective Association, said in a statement that this threshold allows “offenders to remain at large, increasing the risk of repeat offenses.”

“Officers and detectives receive little to no feedback or guidance on why cases are dismissed, making it difficult to improve future investigations, or to know if such improvements are actually needed,” read the statement, which encouraged the district attorney’s office to “facilitate a meeting with local law enforcement agencies.”

Hicks said that his office wants to “work with our law enforcement partners.”

He added that the consequences of charging an individual can be significant — so it should only be done if sufficient evidence is gathered. Dismissing cases or reducing charges would also not benefit the victims, he said. 

This notion is also part of the National District Attorneys Association’s prosecution standards, which state that a higher evidence threshold “is recognition of the powerful effects of the initiation of criminal charges.”

And he emphasized that the increase in non-charging decisions is not the only reason more suspected criminals may re-enter the streets, citing the Legislature’s 2021 passage of AB424, which required that a bail hearing happen within 48 hours of a person being taken into custody.

“The vast majority of the defendants who are charged with crimes in our state are released from custody on bail, over our objection,” Hicks said. “Those same individuals are now out on the street, capable of whatever ills they may wish to continue committing in our community.”

Acquittal rate

More than 16 percent of the Washoe criminal trials in 2024 resulted in “not guilty” verdicts, according to data from the district court. 

It’s the highest rate since at least 2018 — an outcome defense lawyers suggest is the result of less plea bargaining and prosecutors' attempts to try to convict people on more serious but potentially harder to prove charges.

Drakulich, the Washoe County judge, told state legislators last month that more criminal trials will naturally lead to more acquittals — and that more acquittals could incentivize defendants to plead not guilty and try their chances at a trial.

“They go back [to the jail] and they talk about the fact that they’ve been acquitted,” Drakulich said. 

Asked about the increase in the acquittal rate, Hicks emphasized that every case is different, but that cases that go to trial are typically ones where the defense attorney thinks the prosecution’s case is flimsy.

“We still have to convince, unanimously, 12 jurors that this person did in fact commit this crime beyond a reasonable doubt,” Hicks said. “It's still no guarantee. It's still the highest burden in the law.”

Editor’s note: Orrin Johnson is a former columnist for The Nevada Independent.

This story was updated at 10:41 a.m. on 3/2/2025 to correct that the district attorney's race is partisan.